DebiCates' 2026 "Old Lady Reads What?"

Introduction. It's January 1, 2026, at last.

I like
➵ weird
➵ fantastical
➵ surreal
➵ quirky
➵ outrageous
➵ oddly quaint
and yes, if need be, even
➵ gory.

For years, I liked and sought out only serious-minded, realistic Literature. (Capital L.) That's what I loved most.

Or so I thought.

This is where l record this newest self-discovery. You might even see some kid's books here that fit the bill, probably in the oddly quaint category.

➵ January 2026

Not starting off my first 2026 reading share with weird, fantastical, or any of that. Instead I had a whole 'nother level up experience. TWO in fact.

FIRST with Smon Smon by Sonja Danowski

I brought this book with me for a short visit to see my 2 Littles (granddaughters ages 7 and 9). I brought two books specifically for them, and told them I had hoped they would read them to me.

Little did I know how stunning an experience that would be.

This title was for the 7 year old. She didn't read it to me, she sang it to me, while accompanying herself on a ukulele.

Need I say more? Sung to me. With a ukulele!

SECOND with Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes

This one I selected for the 9 year old, my plan was to quickly make sure she was introduced to some of the classic kid's nursery rhymes before she would (very soon) outgrow their magic.

She sat with the book open in front of her and page by page, with complete improvisation, sang each rhyme to me, each with different melody matching the tone of the message and the classic rhyme's inherent rhythm. Both of her parents are musical, but nothing at all prepared me for this repertoire of her innate talent. I was dumbstruck.

With each magical turn of the page, I was the happiest Granny on the planet.

=================BEST of THE MONTH=====================
(Other than the two above, which will remain Best of January, Best of 2026, Best of My Life.)

The Animal Mummies Wish to Thank the Following short story by Ramona Ausubel

If you have encountered Ausubel before you know that her imagination seemingly has no limits. In this story she speaks in the voices of the mummified animals at the Cairo museum after a sign had just been put up in their corner "The Animal Mummies Wish to Thank the Following" with what might be their real thoughts on that sign, on their weird afterlife fate.

"Day of Wrath" short story by Dorothy K Haynes

I'm reading through the latest (only the 2nd) collection of Haynes' short stories. This story had never before been published, probably because of its subject manner at the time it was written: a little orphan girl has been assigned to clean the orphanage's mortuary and as she is polishing the little brass crucified Christ, he escapes the crucifix! When Haynes writes about orphans and the kinds of tales they gravitate toward (she grew up in an orphanage), no one does weird better.

26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss short story by Kij Johnson

If the title grabs your attention, the story definitely will. The first line is "Aimee's big trick is that she makes 26 monkeys vanish onstage." And vanish they do! When they return, they often come back with odd gifts, like playing cards or slippers. But where do they go? And more importantly, why? A very odd, very delightful story that will uplift you.

The Smallest Woman in the World short story by Clarice Lispector

This story blew me away--it's pure enchantment with a razor sharp wit and uncanny breadth of the human condition. Really. No, really. You can listen to the story here, an amateur reading but one that will also add to the astounding amount of enchantment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEw5Ojh3Lck

Stars Go over the Lonely Ocean poem by Robinson Jeffers

Californian Jeffers had some unpopular ideas in the mid 20th century, ideas that intrigued me, as well as a few others, like Gary Snyder. Jeffers takes the view of humanity from 10,000 feet up, or perhaps better said, 10,000 years from now. You can read the poem and the comments from The Poetry Collective group here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/377942#9085320 In fact, you can join the group and select a poem for an available Saturday on the roster here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/374036#8954197

I probably could go on with the "Best" of January--a month where I was absolutely spoilt for choice--but I think I'll leave it at sharing the top five...and try not to doubt myself.

For everything I read in January (not just weird) see https://www.librarything.com/topic/376652#9046750

➵ February 2026
=================BEST of THE MONTH=====================

Being There short novel by Jerzy Kosinski

Anybody seen the 1979 film with Peter Sellers? For many, it's a beloved quirky classic. The novel is that too, more so perhaps. The film was delightful but it took liberties with the story, mostly for added humor, but also it made an interpretive stand at the end. In the novel, the reader is not forced into that conclusion. I liked the novel better for that reason.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight epic poem translated by Simon Armitage

We moderns did not invent the weird tale! This 700 year old poem has a giant of a man who is green from his hair to his toes. It has a man who has his head hacked off only to put it on his on shoulders again. It has a virgin begin sorely tempted nightly by another man's good wife. It also has a man giving another man kisses every day. Weird and strange? If yes, it's a 700 year old weird and strange.

"On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs" poem by Renée Nicole Macklin, aka Renée Good

Yes, this was the same unarmed woman called a "fucking bitch" by ICE agent Jonathan Ross who shot her in the face. She was not only a good person but also an award winning poet, nabbing the prestigious Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020. It took me several read-throughs to get to know her poem. By the last reading, I was sobbing for humanity's loss. Loss for a poet who wrote an amazing poem, but also that deep universal loss of the , expectation of justice and law and order. Loss, loss, loss. It was all loss and lost on a cold and snowy January 7, 2026.

The best recipe of the recipes I've tried in February (not all that many)? The potato salad in the non-vegan Lemon cookbook, ha! A simple recipe that instead of mayo (vegan or otherwise) it is made with lemon and olive oil and herbal seasonings, that combo is hard to beat in any dish. She also included a neat trick to dry your potatoes after boiling them but before adding the dressing: drain, put potatoes back in the hot pan, add heat again, shake them around for a minute or so. Brilliant!

I have begun a big project to go through all my vegan cookbooks. Here are some I read cover to cover this month, selecting from them yummy sounding recipes that I'll be steadily trying over this year.

The Lemon Cookbook by Eleanor Freemark, not vegan but I love lemons and can sub.
Sweet Potato Soul by Jenne Claiborne, I spent most my life partaking of southern dishes, time to veganize.
Making Vegan Meat by Mark Thompson, I watch his YT channel, probably don't need the book.
Quick & Easy Thai: 70 Everyday Recipes by Nancie McDermott, not vegan but I do love Thai food and can sub.
Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day by Celine Steen, two piece of bread & imagination.
Vegan Finger Foods by Celine Steen, on the hunt for something tasty to bring as hors d'oeuvres.
Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry, what's not to love in a cookbook that includes music selections.
Vegan Indian Cooking by Anupy Singla, time to learn how to cook Indian for myself.
Cookin' Crunk by Bianca Phillips, been using the homemade Worcestershire sauce for a while now.
Vegan Bowl Attack! by Jackie Sobon, almost all my meals are eaten from a bowl, ha
Southern Pies: A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes by Nancie McDermott, reserving pies as a rare non-vegan treat!
15 Minute Vegan by Katy Beskow, this single vegan doesn't want to slave in the kitchen, either
Vegans Go Nuts by Celine Steen & Joni Marie Newman, nuts go bad, even stored in the fridge, time to use them up

Morning, Debi. Happy 2026. *smooch*

>15 richardderus: Happy 2026 to you dear friend, mwah!

I'm starting it off already with a possibility for this log....The Haar! Description in reviews are "wee Scottish granny" and "What ain't blood, gore, and violent murder is desperate sadness". Sounds promising. ha

Welcome!

>16 DebiCates: Apposite at the very least. *shudder*

Hi!

New Year greetings from Kuala Lumpur. My project is at least physically completed and an addition to the city scape.

Look forward to keeping up with you in 2026, Debi

Hi Debi, just waving to you. I make no promises to keep up with the 75ers pace of posting. Wishing you a happy new year - thank you for coordinating the new poetry group discussions too - a joy.

>21 charl08: Happy new year to you too, Charlotte! The 75ers are an active bunch, that's for sure. I'm limiting my 75 posts in 2026 to just books I read that meet a certain criteria--the outstanding weird and fantastical reads--very different from poetry, eh? Or, well, maybe not so much if you consider Poe could easily be in both camps. No worries about keeping up with my ramblings here. It was kind of you to stop by with well wishes for 2026.

Your company on The Poetry Collective is where I do hope, though, I continue to see you. So glad the group is a joy to you. It is a joy to me, too.

>21 charl08: Do you have a thread on 75? After ust checking the titles we share and how much you read, I wouldn't mind following you and checking now and then on what you are up to.

>23 DebiCates: I'm over in the Category Challenge - https://www.librarything.com/topic/377184

>24 charl08: Thanks Charlotte!

Happy New Year, Debi!

>26 norabelle414: Heya Nora! What are you looking forward to most in your shiny new reading year?

>27 DebiCates: I'm looking forward to watching my TBR grow 😂

>28 norabelle414: LOL! Great answer. A classic!

The ol' TBR...I'm thinking my life's goal must be to die with a good one. Hopefully not larger than my Read, though, but I think they are neck-in-neck.

Debi I will simply echo Charlotte's gratitude for the poetry collective group. As you know poetry is dear to me and the platform you have created is a joy that keeps on giving.

>30 PaulCranswick: Paul, I'm so pleased, a bit verklempt even. I had no idea when I set up The Poetry Collective if anything much at all would happen. But things did happened. Beginning straight off with the arrival of the first of the first joiners, of whom you were one ❤️, I have been having a wonderous time. Once a week we get a poem, a surprise, a gift to open, for us to ooh and ahh over together. It is the sound of joy among our tribe.

>31 DebiCates: Indeed it is and quite a range of choices too to appreciate including some of my absolute favourites like Manley Hopkins and Frost.

>32 PaulCranswick: It is always a thrill to see others post those poets we love too. (Elizabeth Bishop was one of my own favorites that showed up posted by another member.)

I also find I'm discovering new poem/poets to add to my reading repertoire. That recent Cummings was a stunner for me. The recent Auden, too.

Hm, I just realized, we haven't had any duplication of poets yet, have we? Cool.

>33 DebiCates: That is surely on purpose though. My original idea was to introduce Manley Hopkins but Tim got there first so I put up John Keats instead. My MAGNIFICENT SEVEN of poets are all moderns chronologically:

1. W.B. Yeats
2. T.S. Eliot
3. W.H. Auden
4. Louis MacNeice
5. Dylan Thomas
6. Ted Hughes
7. Seamus Heaney

My love for all except Heaney and Eliot was immediate but I remember being completely dumbfounded by Heaney's Field Work as a boy and not understanding all the allusions in The Waste Land when I first encountered it as a student. But these two are now firmly amongst my essentials.

I have the complete works of all of these poets on my shelves and often find myself turning to them for comfort or enlightenment.

Stopping by to say hi from Category Challenge! I look forward to following your reading this year, and of course everything in the Poetry Collective. What a wonderful story in >2 DebiCates:! A wonderful age for your two Littles to be, when they are confident enough to sing and play ukelele, and still see magic all around us. Precious memories.

>35 GraceCollection: Thank you for stopping by! I need to get better myself here on LT at following the reading journeys of others, like yourself. I still haven't quite got the hang of how to do that well. I'm working on it though. I'd like to drop by to see you on Category Challenge. Would you send me a link?

>36 DebiCates: Of course! I'm here for 2026: https://www.librarything.com/topic/377140

Just stopping by to wish you well, Debi.

>38 PaulCranswick: Hey Paul, nice to see you. I hope you are having a good start to the reading year. I'm having a splendid one so far. You just caught me while I'm fiddling with the method for tracking my reads for 2026. I've got too many things going on too many places. Nice problem to have, though, since it means my reading is being active enough to be hard to keep track of the way I had been doing it. :)

>39 DebiCates: Great to see you in such good form and I am feeling likewise with the poetry, the short stories, the categories, the 75ers and the reading. Get Hani back next month too.

You picked a great poem on Saturday as well by the way.

>40 PaulCranswick: Let's see... I'm participating in 26shorts, the poetry collective (x 2, one also on Goodreads), 2 weekly short story groups (also on GR), the GoodThings monthly read, and several other planned buddy reads of novels (on GR) for 2026. Plus I'm still hoping to do some serious TBR reading of my own. It's hopping around here, I tell ya! ha

I'm so glad you liked the selection on Saturday. Not only did I adore the poem but Jeffers' "big thoughts" were intriguing.

>41 DebiCates: Popping in to say "Hi!". I read and post about some children's books from time to time on my thread, and I'm always looking for new treasures in that category. Can't say I've ever had one sung to me, with ukulele accompaniment, though. Two of my littles ARE getting quite involved in music now, and it is a thrill to see them enjoying it. Their grandpa, my brother, played music to them from the moment they came into our lives. He, sadly, is no longer here, but I think he left them something special.

I'm going to check out your Poetry Collective. Poetry is hit or miss with me, but I love what I love.

>1 DebiCates: Hi Debi. I’m an old lady so I wanted to see what another old lady was reading. We share 75 books so now I’m interested.

>2 DebiCates: your grand babies are going to remember that all their lives

>43 dianeham: Hi Diane, I see you joined The Poetry Collective! That's wonderful!! You are a poet and retired librarian...like Philip Larkin :) Hope you'll join in the comments on the weekly poems. Also hope you'll sign up on the roster in order to snag a date to share a poem that has been one of your favorites.

We also encourage members who write poetry to start a topic of their own on TPC to share their poems. Take a look at the directory under the "originals" section for a list of folks who have done that. There are even two more member poets from just this week I need to add:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/376425#9043016

>44 cindydavid4: Hi Cindy. I hope they do but iI wonder if it might have just been another day to them, a day of having fun and being a kid. One of the thousands we all had growing up and now we only remembered a handful. I know I will remember it for the rest of my life and will remind them often of how special that was, hopefully making it a permanent one in their memory bank too. ha

>46 DebiCates: Well if not remember being tucked inside the brain somewhere that calls to them to write,or read

>47 cindydavid4: I'm super grateful, all my grands (five, ages 7 to 21) are readers. These two, my Littles (they are the children of my youngest daughter and are the youngest grands) are especially avid. Until this summer when they moved from Texas to Colorado, we would read weekly together when I picked them up from school on Fridays. I even invented a Book Bingo game for them that would work for any book we read. That was in addition to their independent reading and the nightly reads with their parents.

We are going to try facetime where I read a story to them, one I can't wait to share until I see them next summer. I just read the short The Reluctant Dragon and think they will love it. We'll see how it goes...hope the Internet connection is good enough!

>48 DebiCates: The Reluctant Dragon! A delightful short story, and there's that wonderful Disney cartoon, too!

>49 amanda4242: I just saw the first 3 or 4 minutes over on YT. I love the old Disney cartoons but I had never seen that one. I think the girls have Disney channel at home. Wonder if it is available there, we'll check after we've read it. Thanks Amanda!

>45 DebiCates: thanks, Debi. I have many poems I’ve written but I haven’t written anything in years.

>50 DebiCates: I know it's on Disney+ and there are a few complete videos on Internet Archive (a surprise since Disney is as vicious as a pack of rabid wolverines about their copyrights).

https://archive.org/search?query=reluctant+dragon&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22m...

>52 amanda4242: And it is thanks to their litigious nature that our Public Domain laws in the U.S. have been changed numerous times, always trying to kick the loss of money makers down the road another decade or more.

>53 DebiCates: Yep. Really soured me on Mickey Mouse.

For those that follow me, just letting you know I finished out my January highlights above, adding the top five best things I read, all weird in one way or another https://www.librarything.com/topic/377168#9056541

I posted my best February reading highlights above. If the book isn't exactly "weird," well, my obsession might be. 🤪 https://www.librarything.com/topic/377168#9056542

March reading highlights Debi?